


Drive It 'Til We're Through

by NothingEnough



Series: 47 crosses (left 4 dead 2) [5]
Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Character Interpretation, Angst, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Condoms, Declarations Of Love, Ejaculate, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existentialism, Gender Dysphoria, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Nipple Play, Past Rape/Non-con, Scars, Smut, Topping from the Bottom, Trans Male Character, a lot of fucking swearing, riding cowboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 12:32:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9491093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NothingEnough/pseuds/NothingEnough
Summary: "Somebody oughta make him a goddamn crown, that hadda be the moment he became the king of shit decisions." (trans!Nick/Ellis, implied Rochelle/Francis, post-The Bridge)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten a few comments about a particular part of this story, so I might as well put my answer here: Yes, it is possible for a man who goes off T to have a period almost immediately. There are multiple stories of dudes like me who went off T as part of becoming fathers, and became pregnant less than a month after they stopped injecting. The whole "T completely rewires your whole body" thing is, frankly, a myth fueled by cissexism--since T causes such "radical" changes "to everyone", of course doctors are legitimate in requiring people who want or need T to jump extra hoops for hormones. Reality is messier. Some dudes react to T according to general stereotypes, and that's a beautiful thing. Some dudes don't, and that's beautiful too. And some dudes don't want or need T, and their choices are just as beautiful (or handsome, if you prefer).
> 
> T is also VITAL for some men, a fact which I respect--seriously, you're amazing if you've figured out that much about yourself. For some, it's not. Some men have read this story and were triggered, or upset, by the very thought of Nick not having access to T for the rest of his life. And some were angered by my suggestion that Nick faces that situation with resignation instead of horror or suicidal ideation.
> 
> To which I suggest the following: I have yet, in this story, to really dig deep into the implications of Nick being trans. Apart from a relatively brief action-oriented story, in fact, nothing's been from Nick's POV. I have, for good or ill, been saving that exploration for the final section of this story cycle, because this is probably the most… personal? intimate? of them all. Through Rochelle, I got to explore aspects of the apocalypse related to the racism/sexism intersection; through Coach, I got to explore racism and a touch of ageism/disability; through Ellis, I got to explore classism and casual regional bigotries against the place where I grew up. Nick, though, Nick is where I get to explore gender and surgeries and hormones and desires and shames.
> 
> You are free to disagree with the choices Nick makes or how I write about them. But know, before you start in with any accusations or implications, that I'm just a dude who came to realize he was trans later in life, who's still struggling like any ordinary sinner, and trying to figure out what I want and how and when. My shit comes not from reading due to writerly research, but from reading to determine the course of my future, and I'll thank everybody to respect that.

He's kinda famous for shitty choices. Probably because he sees no point in dwelling on them--he chooses, he owns what happens next, he moves on--which he calls cause and effect and other people call a failure to learn. Back when he was a lesbian, Nick musta banged every chick in the People's Republic who hadda itch to experiment in their uni years. That's why he spent most of his twenties without a girl to call his own. He came out to his wife on their wedding day, pretty much in the same moment he realized it for himself--as they had their first dance, he muttered "Babe, I'm supposed to be a guy" and everyone thought afterward she was crying 'cause she was so happy they had closed the deal. That's why she filed for divorce after eleven months of trying and failing to love him as himself. After that, he chose to keep outta the relationship game, and that was why he averaged sixty one-nighters a year over the last nine years.

And now it's the goddamn biblical end of days and Nick chooses to treat it like a casual vacation around the shaft of Florida.

He spends most of his time belowdeck with the navigational system. Taking it slow. They're all dry-fucked if he hits anything. He picks a channel on the radio and he compulsively reaches out every half hour or so. He listens to the engines and the total lack of answers on the radio. He's docked them twice, once to scrounge for more food and once for clothes that might fit them. 'Cause of that last stop, he's got a decent suit  (dark blue slacks and jacket, white dress shirt, white shoes, nice set of cufflinks he stole off a jewelry display on the way out). He picks at the cufflinks and pretends he's not worried about the silence.

Above he can barely hear the familiar buzz of voices. They fish when he stops to give the engines a break. When he cruises, like now, they laze in the October sun and, for all he knows, come up with a name for their three-piece band. He only sees the others when they eat and when he finally stops for the night. 

He and Ellis split the one room with a double bed. He might as well sleep in the chair he's leaning back in now. The T used to cut down his libido. Feeling more at home in his wrecked body calmed him the fuck down. Having to go without, like now, wound him tight, made him ache for the punishment he associated with getting laid. He oughta be choking for it. But he's not. Neither is Ellis. The Base took all the pleasure outta the thought of fucking. So he climbs into bed at night and once or twice a night he holds Ellis and talks him down from a nightmare and that's it. 

He chooses not to think about it.

'Bout that time, according to the GPS's clock. He pictures all those satellites spinning around this raging planet, shining and covered in blue panels like in the movies, billions of dollars and hours, all for fucking nothing. One day they'll crash and rust on the bottom of the ocean and no one will ever know but fucked-up nightmare fish. 

He punches the talk button.

"This is Nick," he says, same shit almost every time, "broadcasting to you live from the Satellite of Love. My compatriots and I are maybe a quarter mile northwest of..." Shoulda checked first, he glances at the map pinned to the wall over the radio, squints at the nearest key, grins. "Northwest of Knockemdown Key. If you can understand this signal, congratulations, you're not dead. I'm on channel 23. If your name's not Francis, get back to me."

It's early in the day, so he feels that little shot of anticipation listening to the silence. If he gets a reply now, he's gonna have to change his pants. By nightfall, he'll be too numb to give a shit when nobody replies.

Nobody does.

He chooses to click through the bands. He pauses on the international channel. The one civilians aren't supposed to use. Strictly Coast Guards.

Fucking nothing.

His brain runs aground on that cold reality once again. Nobody out there. He oughta be able to reach about five or six keys with this thing, to say nothing of any survivors smart enough to sail away from the Infection. And nobody. There's a pretty high chance they won't find that other group, no matter how hopeful Ro and Ellis are. Coach reached the same silent conclusion as Nick yesterday. He stopped coming belowdeck to ask if there was word, and he, Mr. Dare To Keep Survivors Off Drugs, asked for a bomber after they ate.

Nick rubs at his fingers where his rings used to be. He kinda misses them.

***

Four hours, one piss break, one half-eaten box of stale Cheez-its, and two beers later, and Nick sprawls in a doze. He dropped anchor after the last call to nowhere went out. He can hear them all pissing themselves over Ro catching something, Coach's deep tones the clearest, something about fresh food for dinner. He doesn't give a shit. He'll pass on the fish. Everything tastes bland and dry and airy to him. He eats to keep his engines running. Fresh anything is a waste on him.

The radio cycles through empty bands. He should get on there for another announcement. He chooses not to. 

Ellis talks all excited about the future. Last night, he kept Nick up an extra hour just gushing over his big plans. Building a genny run by pedaling a bike. Growing food when the canned shit runs out. Finding and storing T. The kinda bed he wants and the guitars he's gonna find. Nick humored him. That kinda bullshit talk seemed to keep Ellis's nightmares to a minimum. 

But who gives a fuck? What is the point? Anywhere they settle will be a graveyard. They can clear Infected off a small key, sure, but they can't get rid of the stench. Even out here on the ocean, he can smell it, the quiet linger of rot. It'll only get worse. Especially in a muggy armpit like Florida. 

Say the Infected all die of starvation, or lack of faces to break, or whatever. Come summertime, there'll be north of twenty-five thousand bodies curdling in the sun on Key West alone. Thousands more spread over the other islands. And a strong northern breeze will bring in the perfume of the whole fucking United States boiling into corpse soup. Never mind the Infection, just imagine all the plain Jane diseases breeding in all those dead bodies. Tickles his gag reflex just thinking about it. 

Playing house sounds pretty fucking stupid to him. 

He's so used to this kinda darkness (he used to drive Caron up the wall with his conviction that something, climate change or nukes or something, was gonna take out humankind) that it almost sends him off to sleep. 

Then the radio clicks to the next band and Nick jerks back so hard his chair tips him onto the thin carpet.

"--southwest of Hiaasen Key," the voice says. "If you can hear this, reply on this channel. We got food, water, and before you get any funny ideas, we got guns out the wazoo. Any friendlies out there, get back on channel 64."

Nick flails to his feet, heart a hot mess of skips and beats, and practically throws himself on the damn radio. It auto-scans to the next station. He forces it back to 64. He punches the talk button. He opens his mouth and the ache of his tongue tells him he bit the shit outta it.

"Francis, you greasy motherfucker, I never thought I'd be glad to hear your voice."

Silence. Nick imagines Francis doing the same face-fault he just pulled. He smiles. A click. "Jesus tittyfucking Christ, it's Colonel Sanders."

"I got some meat for you, Francis, but it's not fried. You're gonna eat it raw."

A rough laugh. Nick can't help it. He's grinning so damn hard it hurts. "How the hell are you, suit?"

"In one piece. So're the rest of my crew."

"Oh, thank fuck for that, man. I'd be all fucked up if it was just you."

"I hate you."

"Back at you. Where are you assholes?"

"Hang on, I've gotta tell Rochelle you just called her an asshole."

"... come on, don't do--"

Nick cups his hands over his mouth like a bowl. Blows. The whistle he creates fills the whole belowdeck like a klaxon. As he runs outta air, he catches the sound of rattling metal--the rods clacking to the deck--and the stampede of three sets of feet all rushing in his direction at once.

***

Nick brings the Satellite of Love to a stop at the docks of Sunset Key. Coach and Zoey settled on here over the radio--tiny, close to Key West for when they need to raid supplies, and totally cut off from the rest of the keys except by boat. If this place is fucked somehow, there's Hiaasen Key to the south--smaller, but apparently owned by somebody with a good sense of humor. Not a bad place to pretend there's still shit to live for.

He picks at one of the strings on his life vest.  He can see the other survivors' ship through the window, a little powerhouse of a yacht. The original name is painted out and above it, in rickety letters, it reads BILL'S IDEA. He imagines one of those three hanging ass to the wind off the edge of the yacht to paint that upside-down. He imagines Bill must have been a memetic badass.

Time to meet the neighbors.

He moves up the short stack of stairs and into the late afternoon air. Muggy and wet as a used jockstrap. The boat shivers under his his feet. 

He turns toward the sounds of voices, and there everybody is. Francis, still in his stupid leathers despite it being Florida, hops from one deck to the other and yanks Ro into a hug. "Jesus, Ro, feels like it's been ten years!"

She kinda pats his shoulder. "Good to see you, too, man, but you're kind of crushing my windpipe."

Nick stands on the top stair, unnoticed, watches. Coach claps Francis on the back, offers the same to Louis. Nick wonders how hard it is for Coach to not greet people with some sportsmanlike slapass. Their words all mix up into the usual din of everybody-okay and how's-the-leg. Francis keeps sneaking glances at Ro like he's ten years old and nursing his first crush on a pretty freshman. It doesn't piss Nick off like he thought it would. They had fucked, that was all, wasn't like they both hadn't moved on.

He cranes his neck a little and there's Zoey and Ellis, half-hidden behind Jerkoff's monster build.

Ellis breaks off the hug and says something too soft for Nick to hear. He's got that grin. The stupid grin he hadn't even known he wore when he asked  _ if I fucked you, would that help? _

Zoey smiles in return. Of course she fucking does.

He turns around and heads downstairs. As the door creaks slowly shut, he finally catches a voice: "Where's that other guy?" Louis.

"He's been kinda scarce," says Coach. "Prob'ly he's--"

The door handle clicks home.

He sits back in the navigator chair. Okay. Well. It's a pisser. But an inevitable pisser. Fuck, maybe it's better this way. Ellis can make his own choices. He had his fun. He got his comfort when the allfucking pressure of survival ground on him. Now there's a pretty, smart woman near his age right in front of him and now the story will play out just as it always has. 

He'll realize Nick isn't the kinda guy you keep around for more than a few nights, and Nick's overstayed his welcome. And Ellis will spend the night elsewhere tonight. Maybe not with Zoey. But definitely not with Nick.

And that sucks. But it's okay. Nick has seen so many people make that same damn choice. He's so used to it that he barely thinks about it anymore. It's just the way the dingle dangles, as he used to say before he had the balls to cuss. He'll be fine. He always is. 

He just hopes the speech comes sooner than later. He hates dragging shit like this out.

***

Nick makes one brief appearance above an hour later. He snags six bottles of Modelo from the cooler on Bill's Idea. He can hear everybody yammering away over there. He slips back around the cabin to the unseen part of the deck unnoticed, or so he thinks.

He sits there now, bare feet hanging off the edge of the deck, thinking. No Infected have shown their dirty faces yet, but they will. It's in the air. Everybody is so distracted by the reunion they haven't noticed. They will. He'll insist on pulling out before they bunk down for the night. Assuming no screaming party crashers show up first.

And then what?

He doesn't want to, but he thinks about the Base. That showed him he wasn't the only man left on Earth who made shitty choices. 

It was kinda fucked up, how all that shit had screwed up Ellis more than him. He's spent a total of six years of his adult life in prison. Living with the lack of freedom, with the knowledge that rape was just around the corner, he's so used to it that it barely rates. Not for him or for Ro. And before the end, the fear had lived in him too, the fear that led him to choose men who liked to fuck in dark rooms and didn't touch their partners, who just wanted a cock in them for ten minutes before they lurched home to their women.

That fear, that was just part of life with a pussy. 

He remembers climbing into Ellis's bunk after an hour of not sleeping. That gave him something to do. Ellis was so bullshit he couldn't hold still, kept shaking like a vibrator and muttering about how he was gonna die here. How Nick would be okay. Crazy shit. Didn't even cross his damn mind that Nick had a fuck of a lot more to worry about than dying. They ended up fucking (somebody oughta make him a goddamn crown, that hadda be the moment he became the king of shit decisions). Worst fuck in the world. Him pinning Ellis under him and pumping his hips with all the erotic energy of a guy with a cold folding laundry. Ellis came kinda limp and quick, and Nick sat straddling him for a few seconds, soft wet heat in his pussy and wondered what the fuck he'll do if this got him pregnant.

That last time, he thinks as he works the church key to open another beer, maybe it's good it was such a pisser. All the other times they fucked were good in a way that fucking scares him, but that last one showed him what this was, what it always was: two scared monkeys trying to prove they were still alive. Now the monkeys aren't so scared. Now they've got time to think and act like people. And this monkey isn't relationship material, hasn't had one since the divorce, and doesn't know what the fuck Ellis could possibly want from him. 

Nothing he can't get outta Zoey.

Nick hears Louis coming, he's wise to his surroundings no matter how deep he thinks. The thump of the crutch on the deck, the vibrations of his footsteps, the sound of his breathing, all hit Nick before Louis even rounds the corner and enters his peripheral. Nick gives him a lift of his chin by way of greeting.

"Thought you were sleeping," Louis says, his voice so cheerful it sounds insane. "Guess you're too busy avoiding everybody to sleep, huh?"

"I'm not chatty." He shrugs. "Wanna beer?" He hears his Boston clunk outta his damn mouth thanks to the booze,  _ wannuhbeeah? _

"Sure, man, if you don't mind." 

Louis takes a solid minute to situate himself, setting the crutch aside, slowly lowering his ass onto the deck, helping his bad leg under the railing. Nick cracks the cap off a Modelo. Outta all of them, Louis is probably the only company he can stand. He's not a T-monster like Francis, and fucking everybody else just makes him wanna drown his goddamn self. But Louis, he's got that look. The one Nick sees every morning when he's got a mirror and the time to shave. The one that says the owner of that face stared a little too long into the abyss, and noticed the abyss staring back. Makes him okay. Even if he chooses to hide the look behind a lot of bullshit good cheer.

"Thanks." Louis takes the bottle from him and drinks like he's a six-year-old taking his medicine. They sit for a minute watching the docks and listening to the water and the racket of their companions, Coach and Francis arguing over who can bench-press the most.

"This place crawls," Louis says.

Nick nods.

"Too many boats in the harbor. Maybe everybody evacuated some other way, but I think they got locked down. Doesn't matter, though, we're all carrying. We can handle anything at this point, right?"

"Sure."  _ Shhoah _ .

"You okay? For real. I can find somewhere else to be if--"

"It's no big."

"You okay at listening?"

"Why?"

"You said you weren't chatty. I kind of am. You mind?"

"Knock yourself out, man."

"Okay." Louis stares at the mouth of his bottle, the little flower of gold foil at the top. He's not wearing his tie. "I thought it was just us. North America. But I can't get anybody on the emergency channels, the ones that ought to tap into Cuba. That's bad shit, my man. If a little island with a government capable of shutting everything down with one word from El Patrón got Infected, then I'm pretty sure everywhere got Infected. Maybe not absolutely everywhere, but enough to count as a failure of civilization. And... I mean, I've played Fallout and BioShock, I'm not keen on the odds of me living in whatever brave new world we try to build out of the dead one. Also, I miss my cat."

"Bet your cat's okay. One thing I haven't seen is a dead cat."

"Maybe. But we're not."

"Nope."

They both take a swig.

"It's just... what now?" Louis says.

That chills his spine. A little close to home. "No fucking idea."

"I'm serious. We, you know, tricks of the trade, if we knew somebody's technical issue had more to do with the user than the computer, we'd say 'it's a PEBCAK'. Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard."

Nick snorts.

"But this, this is like, Problem Exists Between Mind and Reality. I always thought we'd make it outside of Infection. Then we... went to a base. Saw what they were doing. Got out when the Infected hit. And I figured, welp, we'll just cruise to the Keys and we'll find people one day, get outside of Infection and we'll be fine. But that's not happening. That was my hope. I don't have a new hope, yet. And people get, uh, they get fucked up when they get hopeless. I'm... I'm worried we'll find us an island, get all settled in, realize we're the only living people left on Earth, and we'll all be dead before hurricane season. There's no big fight and no endgame anymore. I don't know what the hell we're gonna do."

"I thought you were the happy one."

"I have my moments." Louis gives him the side eye.

"No offense, man. You're just saying what I'm thinking, and I'm supposed to be Daryl Downer. Just a little weird."

"What's with that, anyway?"

"What that?"

"That giant chip on your shoulder. You've got a boyfriend and a nice sense of fashion and you're wickid smaaht for a Masshole."

"Eat me."

"See? Can't even make a joke around you."

He sighs. Louis doesn't want to dwell on his own bleak thoughts. More fun to play head shrinker. Fine. Watching him squirm with regret, that might be worth it. "Okay. You wanna know why I'm such a dick?"

"I didn't call you a--"

"I was born, and--"

"You're not going all Genesis on me, are you?"

"And the doc looks at my junk and tells my ma she just hadda 'nutha daughter."

"... Oh."

"Yeah. Oh. Took me decades to figure out how hard the doc fucked the pooch. Then it costs me thousands of dollars I don't have to fix as much as I can. Caron, my wife, she leaves me 'cause she's a lesbian. She agrees I'm a man and she can't stand the idea of staying married to somebody she can't fuck. So that happened."

"... okay?"

"People don't wanna stay with me. They want their weird fun and then it's over. Apocalypse hasn't changed a goddamn thing. Ellis threw a few fucks into me, yeah, don't even wanna know how you figured that one out. But he's not my boyfriend." He hawks the word out like it's a gob of sandy spit.

"Uh, dude, I figured that one out because of how he looks when he talks about you."

"And how's he look when he chats up Zoey?"

"... fuck."

"Yeah. So don't shit in my mug and tell me it's a regular."

"I value my life. I will never shit in or around your coffee mug."

"Good man."

"Has... Have you even talked to anybody about this?"

"What? My pussy, or my fucking Ellis, or my commitment issues?"

Now Louis can't meet his eyes and Nick feels a touch of satisfaction. It's all he has. Sometimes people think they got the cure for all his ills, and it's always talking. Bullshit. He talks and people suddenly can't look him in the eye and then they got better things to do than listen and then he doesn't see them anymore.

"What the hell for?" Nick says. "I'm not bringing it up to Ellis. That's for damn sure. I just got off my period and I might never see a dose of T again. The fuck is talking gonna do to fix that? Or, or him and Zoey. Doesn't even matter if she's into him or not, she's a free woman, fuck, it's even more important now than ever that she gets a choice here," don't think of the Base don't think of the Base "and she might tell him to go screw. So what? That just means he'll hang around and let me at his dick 'til he gets tired of me. Or 'til we find more people, if we find them, and he can upgrade. You wanna tell me how talking's gonna make that all better?"

Louis clears his throat. "Sounds like you made your choice."

"Yeppers."

"Look. Uh." He picks at the foil around the mouth of the bottle. "If I can say something?"

Dawn breaks over Marblehead. Nick nods, waits for Louis to admit he's right and then excuse himself for politer company.

"I'm sorry. You are living in a world of hurt. The end of the world's not any better for you than the before. That sucks. I'm... look, Nick, I'm black, I used to be in one of the whiter jobs on Earth outside of Congress, and I'm a man. There's this... this hurt I carry because of that. All the times white people told me I was so  _ articulate _ compared to those awful rappers, all the times white women clutched their purses around me, all the times I didn't call the police because I didn't want to end up dead or in jail. The women who dated me until they found Mr. White. The shit people say when they think I'm not around." He blinks. "Said, not say. See? It's still with me. I still wonder if Francis and Zoey tell racist jokes when I'm not nearby."

Nick coughs. Puts his empty at his side. Opens another beer. "Not the same. You got it worse than me, hands fucking down."

"Doesn't mean you don't have it bad. It's okay to admit it."

"Bullshit. I'm fine."

"You and fine haven't even talked on Facebook in years. You'll sleep with Ellis, but you won't talk to him? That's not fine. Maybe you need to--"

He falls silent. So does everybody. They all hear it before they know what it is. 

A distant giggle.

Nick slides out from under the railing. His thigh knocks one of the empties into the ocean with a muted splash. He winces. Carefully rises to his feet. Glances at Louis, who is still mostly under the railing. 

Nick speaks in a perfectly clear whisper, one the others or Infected can't hear, but Louis can, handy trick Nick picked up in church and perfected in prison: "Shotgun by the church key."

Louis nods.

Nick produces his pistols as the world once more explodes into gunfire.

He hears Francis screaming high and desperate, Ellis calling out "Humper on Francis!", somebody cracking the butt of a pistol to flesh, the creepy noise of a large body impacting water. Thank fuck for life jackets.

He hears a hiss about ten yards to his nine and Nick almost shits. He thinks Spitter and he imagines all that acid eating their boats to flotsam. He imagines them stranded between this shitty island and Key West. No. No sir. Not on his watch.

Nick leaps over Louis just as he bends down for the shotgun, his bare feet slap the deck, two running steps and another crazy jump and he lands like a cat on the docks. He sees the Spitter's jaw unhinge and he gives it a moving target, ignores the various screams of his name as he charges for the dockhouse, runs right past the giant fucking maw and a firehose rush of liquid and he is drenched in steaming wet fire.

"Fucking burning goo shit!" he gripes but doesn't stop, holds its attention so's the others can fill its back with lead, he hears it drop not three feet behind him as he reaches the dockhouse. Throws the door open. Hissing stink of acid on wood. More Infected streaming onto the docks. He rushes inside. Smells worse in here somehow.

He has just enough preservation to check his surroundings, his mind filters out everything that's not moving and he guesses there's no Infected here. He spins toward a window. He wraps his hand in a teal curtain and busts out a few glass panels. Then it's back to Kiddieland, shooting at all the mustacios.

It's over quick. Whatever kind of shots they were before all this shit, they're aces now, and all of them put together? No contest. Once the Spitter couldn't melt their escape route, they were good. He almost gets hit twice by stray bullets, and that's the only danger Nick is in the whole minute the fight lasts.

Then he sees silhouettes reaching over the edge of the Satellite, grabbing for Francis, and figures they're safe. For now. Louis was bullshit in more ways than one. 

There's always another fight.

Nick straightens up. Turns around. And it hits him. He wasn't just smelling Infected.

The room is laid out for a party. Rotten food crawling with bugs on buffet tables. Streamers on the walls. A big collage of photos on the far side of the room. He can make out a few of them, a pretty brunette and a handsome blond in varying stages of age. Over the collage is a big banner reading **VICTORIA + LEWIS HERE'S TO 50 MORE WONDERFUL YEARS!!!**

The room is full of dead people.

Seated at the guest tables. Scattered on the dance floor. Dressed to impress. Toddlers and old people and teenagers and couples in their fifties and seven infants. The closest ones look like they died hard. And the drink cups. Everywhere. Under the terrific smell of decay, he catches the sugary undertone of Florida orange juice.

They came out for a party. They were trapped here. Somebody showed symptoms of the Flu. Everybody in the dockhouse decided they'd rather be dead than Infected, and drank the Kool-aid. The ones who didn't, they just tried to crash onto the boats.

The burn of the acid subsides. He looks down. His exposed skin is an angry, sunburnt red. Holes in his clothes and his life jacket.

"I just got this damn suit," he says to the room full of corpses.

No one, lucky for him, says anything back.

-tbc-


	2. Chapter 2

He stands by the radio and keeps an eye on the washroom door. Coach has been in there for days. He's not that pissed about it. Right now, Coach makes his bed in the navigation room outta a thick stack of sleeping bags and foam padding he folds up every morning. He's the only one of the four of them without a door to shut against the world. He can take his time.

Nick punches the talk button. "Yaz there?"

A long wait. Then Zoey: "I'm here."

He talks carefully. Don't be a dick to her. Whatever Ellis does is his choice. Doesn't make Zoey a bitch. He knows from bitches. "Guess we're gonna hit up Hiaasen tomorrow."

"It's not big enough." She speaks with this calm authority, the kind that doesn't get his balls in a knot. "Sunset's half a mile wide. Hiaasen's maybe three hundred feet, and I'm guessing most of that is mansion. Might be okay for now, but we'll run out of space fast. We're going to have to clear off another island."

"If we find anybody else."

"Even if we don't. I'm not ready to be alone yet, but I can't be the only one who wants my own space."

"Sure." He almost asks if Ellis is with her. He was belowdeck when they pulled outta the dock. He heard somebody hop off right before he started guiding the Satellite of Love away. And he hasn't checked around to see who it was. "We'll figure the shit out tomorrow. Coach'll be by the radio if you need anything."

"All right," she says, sounding like she's thinking about something else. Okay. Fine.

The door clicks open. Coach drifts into view. He changed into the giant Ron Jon shirt and boxers he's been sleeping in, a pistol in each hand.

"You look like death warmed over, son," Coach says.

"Thanks, pop." 

"Get yourself cleaned up, smartass. You might talk trashy, ain't no reason you gotta look it."

"You are a goddamned treasure of paternal wisdom. I'm getting verklempt."

Coach rolls his eyes, moves over to his usual campsite. Nick drifts past on the way to the washroom. He almost gets the door shut when Coach stops.

"Look, Nick, real talk. You been acting off all night. I barely even saw your face before you jumped off the damn boat. Are you okay?"

Nick thinks about it for a second. "Nope."

He closes the door and locks it behind him. 

The little washroom doesn't have much on offer, a toilet, a sink, a smallish mirror with a brown frame, and a little plastic stack of draws under the sink-bowl. They've added shit the owner never did--a cup for their toothbrushes, another cup for their razors, can of Barbasol all near the faucet. The draws have pads (his) and tampons (Rochelle's) and floss (Coach's) and the baking soda/peroxide paste (Ellis's, it shocked the hell outta Nick when Ellis casually admitted it was for brushing his permanent dentures). 

He slides outta his ruined trousers and his boxer-briefs, stands over the toilet, holds himself just so, and passes what feels like three beers. He shakes off, dries off for good measure. Tears off his wrecked shirt and gives his naked body an honest appraisal in the mirror. 

The burns aren't so bad. It's everything else.

He grabs his toothbrush, dry-brushes as he looks at what the mirror doesn't reflect. His jaw still looks okay. So does his stubble. But everything below his waist? His body fat's migrating from his stomach to his thighs and his ass. Just a little now, but it'll be obvious soon. And some of that shit he's already dealing with okay. Not great. But okay. 

He used to get so wet that more than one girl he fucked thought he'd pissed in the middle of sex. The T fixed that problem. Now no T and he gets wet just walking around. He used to fucking hate it. But then Ellis. That got him thinking. Nick's a man, so if he's got a pussy and he creams over nothing, that shit is masculine by definition, ain't it?

Ah, fuck. He spits into the sink, runs water over the brush, goes back to it. He's alone. Nobody can even see the thought on his face. He can admit that he's gonna miss Ellis when that dumbass figures out he wants someone better. He's great in the sack, and he's... got this approach. Nick used to be stone cold. He clung to that like a bad habit after the transition. Rochelle got pretty close to cracking that shield, but they didn't have the time or patience with each other for her to succeed. 

Nobody with a pulse could stay stone cold around Ellis. Least, he can't. He came every damn time, usually more than once--except that time at the Base, and, well, shit, neither of them were at their best. He normally didn't like letting guys fuck him in the pussy, they always forget partway through that he's a man, but Ellis never fucking forgot. Before the Base, Nick had designs on breaking into a sex shop and helping himself to a realdo, he did desperately want to fuck Ellis 'til he choked on it, but he hadn't been in a rush. What they had was good.

Probably won't get the chance to fuck him now. Probably he's off making Zoey feel like a million bucks on the other yacht. 

He chooses to not feel humiliated.

He washes up, finds the loose black shirt and boxer-briefs he sleeps in inside the bottom draw, dresses, leaves the washroom without picking up his laundry. Coach can fucking yell at him tomorrow.

He walks through the dark navigator room, hears Coach turn over in his nest. He opens the door to the room with the double bed and he gets the door shut behind him before he notices. The sound of sleep-breathing. The outline of a body under the thin polyester blanket. That stupid fucking EPCOT cap on the floor near the foot of the bed.

Oh.

He gawks, hand still on the door handle, stretches his neck 'til it cracks. Huh. Guess it was Rochelle who jumped ship. Why not Ellis? No goddamned clue, and right now, he doesn't give a fuck. There he was thinking about the sex he wasn't gonna get anymore and here's a shot at one last go. 

Maybe it'd be better if the last time was a good time. Then maybe he'd know he did everything he could to keep Ellis's interest, then maybe he could let this go with a clean conscience, and then maybe he'd stop bullshitting himself and pretend he's got some motive right now other than he just wants to feel good for half an hour.

Nick climbs into the bed. Ellis grunts and flips around in the sheets, curls up next to him. Nick falls into a position familiar to both of 'em, Ellis's head on his pockmarked chest, his left arm under that neck and around those shoulders, his right hand finding and toying with all those fucked-up curls. The muggy air and the stress of the day turned Ellis's mop into a thicket with no real shape, almost no curl to it, still feels okay under his fingers. He scratches Ellis's scalp.

"... nnnm?" Ellis hides his face against Nick's chest. "Tahmizzut?"

"Time to wake up," Nick says, hating how he now understands the despicable Southern accent even when thickened considerably by sleep.

"Whuh? Zombies?" Deep-set eyes pop open.

"No, dummy. This is your wake-up-get-fucked call."

"... ah? Yuhszeeryus?" A tired smile.

Ah, tits. He feels a stab of some unpleasant emotion he doesn't care to identify. He used to fucking hate it when some asshole he let stay in his bed overnight tried to wake him up for one last fuck (not as much as he hated the three separate nights when he woke up to the sensation of a cock or a dildo pumping in and out of him, those nights had ended in beat-downs and his own strengthening resolve to never fuck anybody who could physically overpower him). And now look at him. Shaking Ellis awake 'cause his own dick won't leave him be. "Nah. Jesus, you're sheets. Go back to sleep."

"Uh-uh." Ellis tilts his head back. His teeth unerringly find the unfinished shape of Nick's nipple through his black shirt, give it the hard kinda bite he likes. "Missed this."

... fine. Ellis looks a little too goofy to run this show. Nick can be the ringmaster.

When he takes over, he takes right the fuck over. He fists a hand in Ellis's hair and yanks him onto his back. Holds him there, grins as his (the fuck do you call someone you're fucking for the last time?) sleepily swears. Grabs the hem of his blue shirt (FLORIDA STATE BIRD in white letters over a stencil of a mosquito) and jerks it up over the collarbone. Ellis looks like he always wanted to. Hard thin muscle with an amiable accent of soft pudge, scars linked to hilarious memories (the thin one on his stomach from the time his buddy Keith convinced him to re-enact a swordfight from Lord of the Rings with actual swords). Being horny and jealous at the same time feels like chugging a frap with a shot of espresso, hot and cold and bittersweet.

He resists the temptation to bite. Ellis likes his nipples handled gently or not at all. Nick's tongue coils soft around firming skin, he sucks and Ellis arches slightly off the mattress, groans like he's never been touched before. Sucks and his hand moves down shuddering gorgeous planes of warm muscle and giving flesh, finds the swell of fat right above where the band topping his underwear would be if Ellis were wearing any. 

Good. Very good. He makes a lower play and his acid-coarsened hand wraps around the base of Ellis's cock. His tongue runs outta his mouth and he hears that throaty little moan and a warm burst of precum slicks over his lips like a silent answer.

He hates how much he wants Ellis's dick. Not too big, on the smaller side of average, plenty for him to stroke, thick enough to stretch his lips apart when they fuck, short enough that his cervix doesn't take a beating. Squeeze and stroke and feel him get hard under Nick's effort, bite up his throat, give him a bruised reminder of what he's leaving behind. Take his full lips in a kiss that's all ownership and permission, you're mine tonight, tomorrow you'll be gone.

Whatever. His teeth grind along Ellis's lower lip, teases his tight hand around the head of his sex, sighs, thinks of a better use for Ellis's mouth. He thinks of grabbing a condom first. But one thing about the Base, he knows Ellis doesn't have anything he can catch.

Nick shifts up onto his knees. He can see just fine in the dark here, he can see those narrow eyes widening like a cartoon character's, sees Ellis tilt his head in an unspoken question. He answers by tugging his boxer-briefs down his thighs, squirming the garment under his knees, kicks it off his feet; he hikes up one knee, rotates, plants it back down on the far side of Ellis's pillow. There. He looks down his own body and observes the top two-thirds of Ellis's face neatly framed between his thighs.

"Good Lord, Nick," and each little syllable becomes a warm caress of air along Nick's lips and his cock gives a visible twitch.

"You ready...?"

"Hell yeah I'm ready."

He sinks a hand into dark curly hair, his hips rock down until his sex presses so readily between those lips and ah Jesus bleeding Christ.

Ellis lets him thrust; Nick's not capable of choking him (and that thought doesn't send a shudder of fucking awful self-awareness and disgust among all the little joyful twinges through his body, no, it goddamned well does not). He submits like a guy with more practice than Nick ever got, he follows the guidance Nick provides with every tug to his hair, left and his tongue moves hard and flat along the edge of a lip, center and he sinks his mouth around Nick's cock and sucks like he wants Nick to chafe, up and down and he flicks little licks against the underside, or the thick folds of his foreskin. Ellis moans and the vibrations work him over like invisible fingers tightening around the core of his cock, crooking against his prostate.

Liquid sex jets between his pussy's lips, enough to tickle the insides of his thighs and drip along Ellis's chin, and he has just enough time to feel another burst of disgust towards his own body before Ellis kinda giggles mid-suck, then opens wide, tongue moving to catch Nick's precum like he can't live without a taste and oh fucking Saint Sebastian in a sidecar why the fuck does he have to be so much  _ fun _ ?

It fucking rocks him, tricks him into feeling for one second like this isn't just a way to pass the time. Then that tongue flattens and pushes his lips open and he forgets how to think. His thoughts draw taut around his dick surrounded by perfect suction he feels himself getting bigger, his eyes roll back into black no air no rock of the boat no fucking nothing but his cock flexing its last bright give and the incredible clench from his lips to his prostate.

He drifts back to reality at the sensation of all that fucking precum cooling over hot skin. Nick manages to take a full breath. Looks down. 

Ellis is staring at him. Specifically, his junk--his gaze moves from the meager shape of his soft cock to his lips and back again, and Nick has to tell himself that grabbing Ellis by the nose and twisting and hissing "the fuck you looking at" is not the polite thing to do to the guy who just gave him head. It's just, well, fuck, the hell is there to look at?

He finds his way onto his back, his knees feel kind of strained from all the pressure he put them through. He thinks about the joint lying on the bottom of the night-stand draw. And the condoms. He doesn't move. He just came and he's too fucking weirded out by his own bullshit to enjoy it. Super.

"I'm sorry," Ellis says, of course he does. Nick's surprised he hasn't apologized for the Infection. Everything else is apparently Ellis's fault. "I, I guess, I didn't see them little scars before, so I's just--"

"It's whatever." Fuck the joint, he wants a cigarette for the first time since he got outta stir. He wants anything other than to talk, but before he can go for a Trojan, Ellis says the dumbest fucking thing Nick's heard since the last story about Keith.

"This is break-up sex, ain't it?"

Nick stares a hole into Ellis. Fucking idiot redneck and his goddamned puppy-dog eyes and why the shit does he look like he wants to pout? "The hell?"

"You, uh, I dunno. You're here, but you ain't really here. Like if you had your druthers, you'd be anyplace else. And, y'know, if that's the case, I get it. I think. But not knowing, that's making me crazy. You gotta drop me a clue. I ain't that bright."

Maybe not. Ellis misdiagnosed the problem, but motherfucker nailed the symptoms. Sounds disappointed. Maybe he's more right than Nick thought. Maybe Nick doesn't know what the fuck to do when somebody he sleeps with doesn't wanna fuck and run.

Shit. He does feel like he owes this asshole an explanation. Shit. He hates talking about this kind of crap. "... Look, man, we both, uh, we had this thing, and it was good, but." Ellis's face falls, like an essential linchpin holding up his usual expressions got yanked free. Shitfuck. Talk quick. 

"I'm a fucking wreck, all right? I haven't had anything in the same country as a relationship since I got divorced. And my--I don't even get how you get off on me. I fucking woke you up after we hadda hard goddamn day so's you could suck me off. I don't do this whole, I dunno what the hell to do now that we're not running. I keep thinking you've gotta leave or I'll fuck you up for life, and, uh, look, that is, you can do better. You  _ gotta _ do better. I'll just drag you down to my level."

Ellis just lies there, silent, a judge contemplating the sentence. This achy little empty space opens in Nick's mind, widens by degrees. Fuck it. He half-sits up, opens the draw in the end-table, fumbles for the joint. He finds the box of Trojans he liberated from the party-in-a-box instead, and then Ellis says:

"I gotta IQ o' 65."

Nick chokes on his own spit. "The fuck you talking about?"

"I said, I got--"

"Bullshit." He doesn't have the scale memorized out anything, but that would make Ellis--

"Momma got me tested once. She said I shouldn't pay it no never-mind. But I did anyhow. Only time I ain't the dumbest son of a bitch in the room's when I'm alone. And everybody figures that out one day. Keith's about the only one who never left, even when, this one time, he was hospitalized for three months after we started Bullshifters, and when he got back, it took him and his brothers and his daddy a good month just redoing all the paperwork I fucked up. So, yeah. I get it. I get feeling like everybody hates you. And I guess I ain't real clear on how we're supposed to handle this shit now that we got time to think. But I am clear on a couple things. I ain't going unless you don't want me no more, and you can't fuck me up any worse'n I already am."

He wants to say it's not the same. But that's what he told Louis. And Louis, that rat bastard, was right. There's no gold medal and tall podium waiting for the most fucked-up survivor. 

He finally drops the Trojans and lies back. 

Sixty-five is clinically retarded (and he flinches, his horrorshow of a brain decides to show him every last time he's used that word as an insult around Ellis and  _ jesus _ he's such a bag of shit). Maybe the test was a fluke and maybe it wasn't. It would explain Ellis's problem with telling the difference between a horror movie and a documentary. But, well, fuck. If Ellis hadn't said, he wouldn't have known. The results of some stupid test he took ages ago, the fuck did that even mean? Meant the same as that dumbass doctor checking between Nick's legs and telling Estelle she hadda baby girl on her hands. 

Nick shrugs. "Okay. So neither of us got a clue what the hell we're doing."

"Nope."

"Fucking super." It comes out  _ fukken soopah _ , and Ellis giggles. "Don't you laugh, Sir Drawls-a-lot."

"I'm sorry, man, it just sometimes--"

"Shut up. So we're keeping at it."

"... Yeah?"

"We gonna fuck now, or what?"

Ellis scratches at his scalp, ruffles up his curls even worse. "Uh. I mean, we can. I'm still kinda worked up over here." 

"Then get over here, asshole."

"You gotta work on your sweet talk, man."

He rolls his eyes, opens his mouth all ready with some well-tuned vulgarity, hesitates. Chooses the truth instead. "Listen, dick, if you wanna be all Casanova and nurturing and weepy and shit, good for fucking you. You do that, you get a pat on the back for being a sensitive guy. I do that, people ask me why I bothered getting on T when I'm clearly not trying hard enough to be a man." 

He gets no reply. He goes for the condoms and works a couple outta the box, shuts the draw, then hears Ellis's quiet voice: ".... for real?"

"Yep."

"How in the hell could anybody fuckin' forget that? Jesus, you're prob'ly the most masculine guy I ever set eyes on, and let me remind you, I've seen ever' Schwarzenegger movie since Conan."

He's tried so damn hard not to. Even when Ellis was funny on purpose, Nick didn't laugh. He isn't a very laughy guy, anyhow. But this. This stupid weird compliment. This makes him imagine himself in the Conan getup and Ellis in the leather bikinis preferred by Conan's conquests.

He drops the condoms somewhere and his hands clap over his face and he fucking howls.

Ellis is so startled to actually get an honest-to-God guffaw out of Nick that he freezes. Then he starts in, too, that hesitant kind of laughter more fueled by confusion than amusement. 

Nick finally chases down King Laugh and neck-punches him into submission. Deep breath. Okay. He wipes stress-tears from the corner of one eye. Deep breath. He opens his mouth to say they oughta get down to business and what comes out is: "I'll be your Arnie if you'll be my Jamie Lee Curtis."

And it's off to the races and neither of them get a breath in until the thumping noise of Coach knocking on their door and demanding they keep it the fuck down for just one goddamned night.

Nick struggles a breath in, holds it, forces his diaphragm to calm the fuck down like the giggles are hiccups. He headrushes, his vision swims in cloudy darkness and it feels like all his blood is racing for his brain. He barely hears Ellis at first, it takes him a few seconds to parse his sticky, burbling accent: "This is why I love you, man. You don't even know how much fun y'are."

That cures him of the giggles. Okay. Ellis had said  _ I love you _ . More than once. But only when he was right on the cusp of coming, and that's just the sort of shit people say when they're climaxing. Nick's fucked people who lost their English when they came, people who cried, people whose voices dropped or rose three octaves, people who flailed and accidentally slapped his chest or his face, and people who claimed to love him. Didn't mean they meant it. This is different. Ellis is making a tent outta the bedsheets and his cock, but he's got hold of his fucking faculties.

And this bullshit blows all Nick's ruminations so far outta the water they're orbiting space. "... why?"

"Why not?"

"You barely know me."

"Don't matter. I fall pretty quick. Sorry to say, but it ain't just you."

"You've got your pick of any living adult on Earth."

"Don't want 'em."

Now he's a little pissed. Ellis can't be this clueless. " I'm not a nice guy ."

"I'm nice enough f'r both of us."

Fucking goddamned hellfire missiles in the water. If he were named Christing Buddha Ghandi, maybe he could argue with Ellis right now. But he's just Nick and he's got fucking nothing. He lies helpless and quiet and tries to think of why Ellis should be with anybody else and then he hears the telltale crinkle of foil.

He looks over and Ellis is holding up one of the condoms he dropped, his unfairly handsome face consumed by a grin, one eyebrow raised.  _ D'ju wanna? _

Nick shrugs. Lies back flat. His legs drift apart.  _ Shhoah _ .

A few seconds later, the condom's in place and Nick's knees protest as he climbs back up, straddling Ellis's hips this time, and Ellis is already moaning and Nick's not done a damn thing to deserve that desperate whimpery chorus but fine, okay. He gets an acidburnt hand around Ellis's ever-so-patient cock and guides it home and he's still so fucking wet Ellis slip-slides between his lips and  _ oh _ . 

He runs this show and he sees no reason to hurry, not just yet. He lets himself get used to how Ellis stretches his pussy, feels the rush of blood now centering on his swelling lips. Ellis tries to hitch up his hips and Nick's hands come down hard on his shoulders, holding him flat, he hears Ellis whimper something pleading and now he grins. He runs this show and he doesn't know why the fuck Ellis wants this but fine. 

He'll take it. 

He can't do the boyfriend thing (might have to now, holy shit he might  _ get _ to), but he can fuck like a virgin-red GTO can detonate the Autobahn. 

The motion's so deceptively simple--strain his thighs and his lower back to raise himself a few inches, relax and down he goes, people used to do harder exercises in gyms around the world. Still it takes all his concentration to keep up a rhythm. The feel fascinates Nick. The way his cock gets just slightly thicker around the base. How he rises up and swears he can almost feel the heavy pulse of Ellis's heartbeat through the latex, how he sinks down and fuck he rolls his hips and the head of Ellis's dick strikes his prostate. How his pussy sucks Ellis in once it gets used to him. How he feels like he's tightening up but the steady warmth of precum keeps him from stabs of pain.

Now each rise and fall comes easier and he picks up his pace, and Ellis makes this gorgeous growly satisfied sound that drives his mind to blankness. He wants so many goddam things when he hears that, sees Ellis's eyes roll back in his head and his mouth drop open, he can't fucking list them all. He wants to get Ellis on hands and knees and fuck him for an hour, the only points of contact between them his cock slamming home and his hips slapping Ellis's ass and his hand in Ellis's hair. He wants Ellis to hold him back to a wall and knees up near his chest and fuck him raw. He wants to flick the tip of his tongue along the underside of Ellis's cock while Ellis wraps those full warm lips around Nick's. He wants fucking everything all at once and the thought that he might have the time to get it, slowly, one by one, drives his hips faster.

The yacht's beds were made with a lotta future bouncing of bedsprings in mind. No damn squeaking or rocking or legs scraping along the floor. There's just Ellis under and in him, that high blush spilling over his face and chest and working down towards his belly button, thick heat pushing  _ yes _ deep in his pussy, the fast-fading background of the ocean cradling the Satellite of Love like a protective father's hands, the much more pressing foreground music of Pretty Damn Good Sex in E Major--Ellis's slightly higher-pitched almost weepy moans, Nick's toneless panting turning slowly into a deeper, regular purr.

He speeds up and Ellis, whose hands were balled up into fists against the mattress until now, shoot up and clap firm to Nick's shoulders. He strains to rise against Nick's hands, and Nick, being a generous benefactor, lets him up. The moment Nick's hands move from pinning him down to bracing on the thin mattress, his (what to fucking call him now?) leverages himself to a half-sitting position, drags Nick down the rest of the way, kisses him so hard their teeth click. Nick flinches at the sensation but only for a moment, when the kiss turns to all soft lips he, he fucking hates it but he melts.

He lets Ellis kiss him and works his hips faster, yeah, that's it, keeps getting little hot bursts of bright on every downstroke and  _ god _ faster. Ellis has space to move a little and this goddamned jerkoff how dare he use every inch of that space so well, he fucks like this glorious machine built for the express purpose of giving Nick a rollicking orgasm and the engine just kicked on full power. Nick can hear how wet he is now and he's having too much damn fun in this one moment to feel disgust. Up-down so simple why does it feel so fucking complex ah _ fuck _ and Ellis comes up for air, no, he breaks off the kiss so's he can describe in some detail exactly how tight Nick's pussy feels around his dick and how hard it gets him and  _ jesus _ what this does to him.

Nope. Nope nope. He's not coming first. Not this time. He tells himself this and tries to think about baseball and it doesn't work and he tries thinking of how the world is dead and  _ that right there _ doesn't work and he grinds Ellis so deep he barely rises up before shoving down.

Then he chooses not to give a fuck who finishes when and his orgasm fucking suplexes his brain into nothing and his body into a shivering jolting helplessness.

Ellis, ever the polite Southern gentleman, moans something about the Lord's mercy and tries to slide out of Nick. Nope. Nick seizes those gorgeous hips in his hands and down and crams himself full of Ellis. He doesn't think he'll manage a third, his head's swimming from that last one and he's sheets, but he sure as hell doesn't have the energy for anything more than letting Ellis finish exactly where he is.

Doesn't take long. He's wet enough that it doesn't hurt, feels kind of intense, really. Not in a way that turns him on, fucked as that sounds, it just feels (is it good?) to be that close to him for a little while longer, to hear Ellis choke on air and know that Nick's the one making him do that. Finally he feels Ellis pulse and fall totally silent, his hot forehead pressing hard against Nick's, eyes shut firm against the force of his end.

Nick smiles. He can feel a few muscles in his face twitch in protest. He opens his mouth and says something that's utter word salad. He rolls off top and is asleep before he hits the mattress.

***

They get to Hiaasen Key next day. Coach and Zoey agree they've got enough supplies to forego a run on Key West for a few days. Looks about the way Zoey figured it would: two tiny docks, private beach, two big plantation-style mansions instead of one monstrous palace. No other boats parked on the docks. No broken windows or graffiti or nailed-up boards over doorways. 

The place looks goddamned surreal, a tiny island of rich-bitch normality in a sea of Infected. Makes Nick nervous. They check each room in each building and there's not only no sign of Infected, there's no sign any human being had been in either home since (from the receipts he found on one kitchen table) March. He should be happy, not feeling like that time his big sister made him watch that creepy movie where the woman's eyeball got razored.

But shit. This was the old normal. He's used to the new normal. 'Course it's weird.

Once they're all sure after the third sweep that this key really does have a population of seven, that there's no hidden cache of death and madness anywhere, they kind of wander each mansion in a clueless daze. As the seven of them linger in the church-sized fun room of the sea-green house, Francis calls dibs on the master bedroom and that starts them all off. 

"Bullshit," Nick says, because at this point, arguing with Francis is a moral imperative. "You'll just make the whole room smell like a slaughterhouse. You get the guest room."

"Listen here, suit, I smell like a man, something you don't know much about. I called it, I get it."

Nick resists the decades-long training telling him to look submissively at the tops of his bare feet. He can see Rochelle flinch slightly in his peripheral, imagines Coach and Ellis doing the same thing. Probably Louis too. They know about him. Francis, the tit, does not. And before the apocalypse, maybe even a few days after, that woulda been the kind of comment that earned Francis a few more broken teeth.

Nick chooses to let it go. "Lighten up, Francis. I'm just saying that's too much space for a single man, and maybe we wanna leave these places habitable once we find someplace bigger."

"Who says I'm single?"

"Take it down a notch," Rochelle says. She picks up a pool-cue and polishes the tip with a block of blue chalk. Whoever lived here before left the game racked and ready. "Francis has a point--he called it."

"Please don't encourage him," Zoey says.

Rochelle kind of smiles at her. "But Nick's got a point, too. This place is nice; too bad we can't stay. If I remember anything about the South, it's hurricane season. I don't want to be on an island this small in six months, if I've gotta be on an island at all."

They talk. Louis points out the logistics of clearing even a small island of dead bodies. Nick and Francis, both of whom worked with logistics (with varying degrees of criminality involved), forget to argue long enough to work out a rough schedule. Rochelle argues for hitting the mainland in April, and Zoey and Coach suggest they spend the winter planning on clearing a path up North. Nick tries not to squeak at the thought of spending the summer anywhere near home.

They start claiming rooms and Ellis hides his face behind the brim of his EPCOT cap and asks if Nick and him can have the master in the blue house.

Nick chooses to let him, and 'cause of that, he lies awake that night in a giant fucking water-bed with Ellis sleeping and kicking up a storm and making the mattress gurgle, and he wonders if this means they're gonna take away his crown for King of Shit Decisions.

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the first section of this cycle I actually wrote. Funny that it's the last to be posted. This is it. Finito. I feel that dragging this out any longer would be self-indulgent to a degree that even I am incapable of permitting.
> 
> My gratitude cannot be verbalized, but I'll try. If you've gotten this far: thank you. This has been a long, massive, weird trip which I wasn't sure would ever be completed. I finished it because of y'all. Your hits, your kudos, and your comments kept me going, and I can only hope this small offering was worth your time.


End file.
